


Thanaphobia

by Punk_Kenobi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, For mousynona, Gen, I really love your Nutella and everything, I'm sorry Ferrero, It's very vague, Johnlock Gift Exchange, M/M, Slash goggles activate!, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk_Kenobi/pseuds/Punk_Kenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://s148.beta.photobucket.com/user/mishaangel123abc/media/thanaphobiafanficcover.png.html"></a>
  <br/>
  <img/>
</p><p> </p><p>Thanaphobia:<br/>n. Psychiatry.<br/>an abnormal fear of death, particularly of dying or being dead</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanaphobia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MousyNona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MousyNona/gifts).



> Okay, so this is a gift for the Johnlock Challenges gift exchange over on Tumblr(johnlockchallenges.tumblr.com). My prompt was "_____ is scary." The story in itself is probably very typical, I haven't had much creativity in the past while. I hope you like it, Mousynona!
> 
> PS: I tried to do SOME research into stuff around London to make it a little more accurate, but being an Amurrican, I don't really have any knowledge of British things outside of my friend Joe.

_As it turned out, death, for all its mystery or lack thereof, was dreadfully boring._

It had taken only one bullet to fell him, how generic in its simplicity. A shot to the stomach. Slow, yet fatal. His killer, only a young man grieving for a lost sibling, had fled as soon as he had fired the shot. Not that the cops wouldn't arrest him anyway, he didn't look old enough to be carrying a firearm. That was the least of Sherlock's concern, however.

How embarrassing, to be taken down by someone in their teenage years. He had always thought it would be Jim to do the deed. 

How pedestrian.

\-----

It turned out life was boring Sherlock, the fates, which he never believed in, intentionally wearing his patience and mind down to the point of near collapse. He hadn't had a case in nearly two weeks. The record without any incidents was three, and John was nearly driven out of his mind by the end of the first after the manic sleuth decided to bring a bulldog home to experiment on. Three AM concertos and index fingers in the coffee maker in the morning did that to him.

"Sherlock, next case there is in the paper, you're taking it."

"I need work that will let me think, not some bloody trivial matter of a poor woman's diamond necklace being stolen or a man's Ferrari!" Sherlock curled himself tighter into his chair, pouting like a petulant child.

John, on the other hand, was this close to tearing his hair out. Pacing, he rubbed his temples anxiously. 

"No, no, I cannot allow you to spend one more God forsaken day in the flat. I can't listen to another one of your late-night sonatas or what have you, I can't find parts of human remains in the dishwasher again, and I certainly can't live here with you like this. You are going to go to Lestrade and get a case, no matter how menial, or I'll drag your brother away from his work and have him give you one himself!"

Sherlock found he couldn't come up with a counter to his argument, so he simply stared at the wall as if he could bore holes in it, but that was all the acquiescence John needed, picking up the scattered clothespins on the floor from one of Sherlock's half-baked experiments.

\------

The next day, however, Sherlock didn't need to leave the flat. Lestrade came to him.

"I've got something, a couple of accidental deaths-"

"Why do you need me for accidental deaths? I only partake in solving intentional ones. Shoo. Au revoir. Auf Wiedersehen."

John gave Sherlock a stern look and apologized, muttering. "How you ever dealt with this before I came along I'll never know."

Lestrade smirked and shook his head. "As long as he's clean, we don't really care what he does."

John nodded. "Best he stay that way. Lord knows what he's like when..." John couldn't help but shudder, if the state of Sherlock's old flat held any clues, it was horrendous. Helping him move was a nightmare. "Well, anyway, what's the case? He'll take it."

Lestrade ran a hand through his graying hair. "People are dying from buying mints, John. Tic-Tacs."

Sherlock laughed from his chair, which he hadn't left for days, the very notion of the case absolutely preposterous. "That's the FSA's problem, not mine."

Lestrade sighed. "They're all centered around isolated stores. Each victim bought the mints from one of two stores. The lab says it's cyanide but they can't find any traces of where those capsules might have came from. These aren't incidents, Sherlock, now will you come?"

Sherlock shook his head, steepling his fingers and putting them to his chin, glaring at the floor. John sighed, he knew that look. "No, no Mind Palace. You've been there twice in the past few days, now get yourself cleaned up and get some clean clothes on." With that, he nearly dragged the consulting infant up the stairs. 

John had grown used to acting like Sherlock's mother but his disdain for the job would never cease. Downstairs, Lestrade chuckled and headed back to his car. He didn't miss those days.

\-----

Sherlock absolutely refused to come within two streets of St. Bart's, and for understandable reasons. John graciously switched his job from Bart's to the Royal London Hospital ten minutes away after his fall, having been unable to return to where he had seen Sherlock fake his own death. At least at his new location there was an equally suitable lab for Sherlock to analyze the samples found and John could still bring him coffee every few hours.

Sherlock peered through the eye of the microscope, analyzing the pill's casing. The drug inside was cyanide, a fact the lab techs at Bart's had gotten right for once, though one the detective would have put his foot down on if they had mislabeled it. The incompetent ignoramuses.

No manufacturing marks, must have been made by hand. Can't have made enough to distribute to all those packages by hand, must be working with pharmaceutical technicians. 

He next looked at one of the empty Tic-Tac box, noting the way the label was torn.

No multiple tears, nor any traces of a second false label. The victim opened it themselves, by the tiny flecks of nail polish on the cap. The technician would have worn gloves, however.

This was becoming repetitive, it was another Jeff Hope scheme. Moriarty was losing his touch. Within hours, the detective had puzzled out that it was not Jim, in fact, but rather a wealthy businessman with a dubious mental status had simply bribed the owner of Ferrero chocolates to have his workers put one capsule in each box, unknowingly, and in return he would have associates of his lend money towards the construction and maintenance of three new factories. Simple-minded ignorance caused by blind greed for an already extremely wealthy company.

Then that damned adolescent had to come into play.

\-----

His sister was killed by one of the boxes and he had stumbled upon Sherlock as the detective was heading home via a shortcut from the outskirts of London on foot, which was much more convenient given that he hadn't the money for a cab. The young man was highly intoxicated and possibly high. From the smell, a mixture of Cacique rum and crack cocaine. He should have been dying at that moment. Suggested high tolerance to spirits and drugs, likely an addict. Sherlock knew the type. 

Bouts of shouting and slurred oaths left the adolescent's mouth.

"Couldn't save her....kill you dead...nothing left...fucking bastard!"

Sherlock was simply amazed at how he was able to breathe, let alone stand and shout. Which he couldn't help but mention, given his own experiences with mixing spirits and cocaine were quite disastrous. He was in hospital for weeks, then rehab. Dreadful.

Then the gun was pulled from a pocket and, with no hesitation, Sherlock ran. He knew how dangerous an intoxicated person could be. 

It wasn't fast enough. 

Feeling the blood pool on his shirt and jacket, Sherlock uttered little but a sharp gasp as he collapsed. He watched as his assailant ran...or what could be constituted as running while in his state, more of a quick stumbling. John was far from the dank tunnel under an overpass where Sherlock had met his grisly fate, so he never bothered to yell for help. His shouting wouldn't be heard by the competent doctor's ears, keen as they were, and would only use precious oxygen that his body was losing quickly.

John. He needed John, though. His physical pain far outweighed his sentimentality and care for John's emotions.

Sherlock pulled his cell phone out of his pocket gingerly, yet as fast as he could. Shock would set in soon, mere minutes. He could already feel his mind slipping, he had to contact someone. First Mycroft, so that he could trace the signal from his phone and, in case aid was not available, alert John and have paramedics bring his cadaver to St. Bart's. Mycroft knew the location of his will as he was the one who insisted upon the document when Sherlock started his detective work. 

_S.O.S._  
 _-SH_

Once that was sent, Sherlock turned to John, texting the words that were so familiar and lingered in his mind, his fingers and hands shaking terribly as shock set in. 

_Come at once if convenient._  
 _If inconvenient, come anyway. It is dangerous this time._  
 _-SH_

Sherlock didn't know if John would come in time, nor if Mycroft could work fast enough with the little time he had, so all Sherlock could do was wait. The sticky warmth flowing freely now from his abdomen was a morbid comfort on that brisk, March day, warming him while he knew his body was cooling rapidly. The sun was shining at the end of the tunnel, and Sherlock couldn't do much more than chuckle, then cough at the irony. 

This really was turning out to be terribly textbook.

Sherlock noted that there wasn't anyone around, aside from a small tabby cat poking its nose at a tin can. Stray, by the looks of it, though a collar indentation noted that the cat was once owned by someone for a lengthy period of time.

And so, Sherlock deduced his last few minutes away at the possible reasons the cat had become a stray, losing count at four. He fought closing his eyes. He hated sleep anyhow. John still wasn't there, but how could he be? There was no address to this place, no discernible landmark John would remember. It would take at least twenty-seven point three minutes....or was it twenty point two-eight before he would locate his body, already hardened with rigor mortis, exacerbated by the cold.

Sherlock was alone. Everyone he cared about would be vulnerable without him.

And suddenly, death wasn't boring anymore.

Death was scary. Frightening. Unimaginably horrific.

Decades of work with death couldn't have prepared him for this feeling. Sherlock quelled the fear growing in him as he remembered disjointedly a conversation he'd had once, mumbling the words without expelling the oxygen he didn't have to spare, his breaths shaky, shallow, and rapid.

_"If you were dying, if you were murdered, in the very last seconds, what would you say?"_

_"Please God, let me live."_

_"Use your imagination."_

_"I don't have to."_

He died for them once, he'd do it again.

Sherlock Holmes protected those who he held dear to his heart until his very last breath, whispering in a voice barely audible as he heard muffled, distant shouts coming from the light at the end of the tunnel. 

_"John..."_


End file.
